The four levels of Jolly Phonics Readers have been designed to give confidence and enjoyment to young readers so that they can develop independent reading skills and gradually move onto more complex texts.

With three lively series in each level, the books enable children to practise phonic skills and develop their reading comprehension.

The Bird House & Other Stories contains six engaging fiction stories and provides text comprehension questions, discussion activities and guidance for parents.

The text in the book uses only fully decodable regular words (words that are made up from the 42 letter sounds taught in the first stage of Jolly Phonics) and a small number of ‘tricky’ words (frequently used words that are not fully decodable at this stage).

At every stage the words are within the reach of children as they use their letter sound knowledge and tricky words already taught.

All the tricky words and letter sounds used in the book are shown on the front inside cover.

Light type is used as a guide for any silent letters, such as /b/ in lamb.

Level 4 provides revision of the alternative sound of /y/ used for the /ee/ sound at the end of words like funny and happy, the ‘hop-over /e/’ spellings of the long vowel sounds and introduces spellings of the long vowel sounds, /ay/ as in day, /ea/ as in seat, /y/ and /igh/ as in fly and high, /ow/ as in low and now, /ew/ as in dew, /oy/ as in joy, /ir/ and /ur/ as in bird and turn, and /al/, /au/ and /aw/ as in talk, pause and saw.